


a certain kind of bravery

by ataxophilia



Category: Firefly, Serenity (2005)
Genre: F/M, First Kiss
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-22
Updated: 2014-03-22
Packaged: 2018-01-16 13:04:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 820
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1348501
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ataxophilia/pseuds/ataxophilia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“When you smile like that,” he says, “I just want to kiss you.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	a certain kind of bravery

**Author's Note:**

> First kisses break my heart and put it back together all at once.
> 
> Unbeta'd.

Something Wash says sets her off. She won’t even remember what, after, but it’s enough to make her laugh hard enough that her eyes get wet and her stomach aches, hair falling into her face as the force of it folds her in half. It’s the kind of laughter she’s missed without knowing it, full-blown and wide open, and it makes the bridge feel a little more like home as it echoes off the metal around them.

As she comes back down from the laughter high she catches Wash watching her with soft eyes gone serious, his hands still like they shouldn’t be. “When you smile like that,” he says, “I just want to kiss you.”

The smile slips off Zoe’s lips. Her face feels cold without it. Wash’s eyes turn a little sadder. She’s seen that expression before, has hated that expression before but never so fiercely as she hates it on Wash, but it would wrong to smile after a comment like that, she thinks. “Wash,” she starts, words catching in her throat and stopping up her voice; she’s said them all before, put them together as many ways as she can, and she knows they both understand what she’s been trying to say but she also knows that neither of them want to.

She doesn’t have to try again this time - Wash interrupts her with, “I won’t make you do anything you don’t want to, Zoe,” and then, before she can change the subject, “I know it’s dangerous out here, I know- I know all the things that could happen to us, I get that.” His mouth tightens into something that’s almost a frown, and his fingers curl into a fist, and he adds, “But I ain’t so afraid of losing something that I ain’t gonna try to have it.” He pauses, the words hanging heavy between them, and then nods as though to finalise them. “I ain’t, Zoe, and I didn’t think you were neither.”

There’s nothing Zoe can say to that. He should be right, and with everything else she’d fight tooth and claw for a chance at happiness, but with Wash she knows it would be too easy to give away most of herself - hell, she’s already given away more than she’d care to admit to the man - and then losing him would tear her apart. And despite the cowardliness of it, the selfishness, the way the fading of the fight in Wash’s eyes makes something inside her ache like it never has before, she doesn’t want to be torn up any more than she already has been. 

"Guess I was wrong," Wash says when she doesn’t reply, and the defeated slump of his shoulders hits Zoe like a bullet to the chest. His eyes drop back to his controls, scanning over his screens and his dials with a practiced eye. "She should be fine on her own for a while," he tells Zoe without looking up. "Reckon it’ll be alright if I spend a few hours locked away nursing my wounds." The joke falls a little flat, stilted by the truth beneath it that they’re both aware of. Wash’s hands hover for a beat or two and then drop to the arms of his chair as he pushes himself to his feet.

Zoe realises, sharp and sudden and painful, that she doesn’t want Wash to leave. Not just not-leave the bridge, but not-leave ever, not-leave  _her_. It’s something she should have noticed a while ago, she thinks, but it’s now, faced with his hunched back, feeling alone like she’s never felt before, that it hits her properly. 

Maybe Wash was right. Maybe letting him walk out of her life now will hurt worse than losing him would. There’s still a part of her that’s sure it’s a bad idea to take the risk, but there’s a bigger part that’s beyond caring.

And, well, Zoe has always been a firm believer in the merit of action in times like this.

It only takes her a few strides to catch up with Wash, what with the length of her legs and the heaviness of his steps, so she’s got a hand on his arm in a matter of seconds. The hope written plain across his face makes her pause, because she’s seen plenty of men look at her like she’s their savior but she’s never seen anyone look at her like Wash is looking at her, as though she’s the reason he’s breathing at all.

She’s not exactly an expert on love, but she can’t think of any other way to name what’s in Wash’s smile when she leans in close and says, “You’re a gorram fool, Wash,” before pressing her mouth against his.

The same smile is still clinging to his lips when she pulls back again a moment later, and Zoe’s already starting to believe this might not be such an awful idea.


End file.
